i'm looking for a way to have a NSWindow, which is able to block other NSWindows, like the menubar does. I mean: It is not possible to drag a Window over the menubar.
Is that kind of behavior realizable for my own NSWindow?
Thanks in advance
Bijan
NSWindow's dragging behavior automatically keeps windows from going under the menu bar — because they aren't supposed to. If you have some special case, you can override the standard dragging behavior. But think carefully before throwing away standard functionality prescribed by the HIG.
Also, it isn't possible to drag a window over the menu bar (rather than under) unless it's also over everything else, because the menu bar is normally above every other window.
I just stumbled on this question. There they say it is possible to move other windows using the Accessibility API or the Quartz Window Services.
Can't I just read out the other window's positions and move them, so that they do not collide with my window? Maybe triggered by a 0.1 sec. timer?
Related
Is it possible to create a NSWindow that will not only is above all other windows (including other applications) but also able to block windows from going "into" that window. Basically I would like to extend the system's menu bar by having another bar below it, but it stops the user from resizing other windows to occupy that space.
For instance, if the user was to maximize a window, it would only be able to have a height of the screen size minus the system status bar minus my application's window.
I was thinking it may be possible by listening to some sort of window resizing notification and if the user tries to set the frame of that other window to a size that would go inside of my application's window then I would resize the other window, but method seems like such a pain.
I also acknowledge that this may not be possible, but was curious if it is!
Thanks in advance!
It is totally possible to make a window which is above all other windows, just set It's level to NSMainMenuWindowLevel.
But preventing other windows from resizing beyond It, I don't think so.
Even if there is a system API to limit window resizing (I don't think there is), some apps use custom code to control window resizing and would completely ignore the presence of your "special" window. I've seen apps which simply hardcode 22 (the height of the menu bar) when calculating window resizing stuff.
What would be the best approach for creating a Window that is semi-transparent, has round corners and an outline around its border and the arrow, but without the the title bar and buttons.
The window will pop up from the Menu Bar when a use clicks on the menu bar icon.
I'm looking to have an effect similar to the "Applications" and "Downloads" windows:
I guess I will need to do the drawing myself. But I'm wondering what's the best way to do this and whether there is anything already built into Cocoa that can minimize the effort? Or maybe a 3rd party project that has already done that (couldn't find anything exactly like that)?
Thanks.
You can create your window with
- (id)initWithContentRect:(NSRect)contentRect styleMask:(NSUInteger)windowStyle backing:(NSBackingStoreType)bufferingType defer:(BOOL)deferCreation
with a style-mask of NSBorderlessWindowMask which will give an unadorned window. Its how the Dock does its mechanics too.
Note that you must init with this style , you can't change an already init'ed windows style.
Place a custom NSView via the contentView accessor with your desired background custom drawing at the top of the windows view stack.
You might need also to setOpaque to NO
What you are looking for has been done a lot. Too much really.
The classes you want to look into are as follows.
NSStatusItem
This is something that appears in the status bar section of the menu bar to the right side.
NSMenu
If you want this from a menu in the application menus, you'll need to do some clever things with views in menus.
NSWindow
As the other poster notes a borderless window is one way to achieve this.
NSPopover
This is another way. Combined with the above, a fancy technique is to use a clear window called a cover window then, when clicking on the menu or status menu, invoke a popover from a point below that in the clear cover window.
That should be enough to get you started with what you should look into.
Beyond that, peruse the Mac App Store and also look at cocoacontrols.com and GitHub.
Well, it might be hard to describe, but what I want this:
When the application fires up, I want it to load a couple of components and I want to show a progress bar loading upto 100% Complete. But for Interface sake, I just want the progress bar on the desktop. I don't want the Window controls or background. My customized progress bar should appear on the desktop loading upto 100%, followed by showing of window and thereby, the entire app.
Just to mention, I want this in a Mac App being developed in Xcode.
I strongly suggest you think about the visual effect you're considering and the assumptions you're making. I would argue this to be "bad design":
Users can put anything as a Desktop Picture. If my background happens to be blue... and your custom progress bar is blue.. then I won't see the progress bar and will be left wondering why your application isn't responding. "Screw this app, it hangs when I launch it. Delete!"
Chances are that users have more than one application running. Your "floating progress bar" would be lost in a sea of other application windows. (Why is iTunes loading something? Oh wait!! It's this other windowless thing... "Not intuitive! Not cool")
This is not very Mac-like. Don't forget there are rules for each platform as to how to be a good citizen. Metro apps need to adhere to a specific Interface paradigm. Likewise, there's a thing to be said for "Mac-like" and I would argue this behaviour isn't (a floating progress bar).
I would strongly suggest you keep your progress bar within a properly named modal window. Applications go in-and-out of being front-most... so it's important to know what that progress bar relates too.
If you've considered all these, the following question should help you get started :
How to make an NSView transparent and show what's under the NSWindow?
You are probably talking of a borderless NSWindow (NSBorderlessWindowMask), with an opaque background view whose alpha is set to zero and an NSProgressIndicator subview to show the progress. You also probably want to use the -[NSWindow center] method to nicely center your window.
However, I doubt that you want that kind of UI. A progress bar is probably not visible on top of all desktops, and thus aesthetically worthless.
I think a rounded, half-transparant black window will be more suited in your case. Take a look at Matt Gemmell's source code.
In my Cocoa/Objective-C application I have a utility panel floating "always on top" to be accessible even when my application is not active. I am trying to disable the "switching to my application when a user clicks on that panel".
The behaviour I would like to achieve is similar to OSX's Keyboard Viewer, (which is also a never activating panel), so that some other application remained active after clicking on my app's panel. i.e. Safari stays active when typing an address using Keyboard Viewer. Even third-party onscreen keyboards have this functionality (for example the one from CORALLO Software), which means this behavior is not reserved system-only.
I was messing around with NSApplicationActivationPolicy, but without positive results. In which direction should I go?
You should take a look at the canBecomeKeyWindow and canBecomeMainWindow methods on NSWindow. It sounds like you want your window to maintain key status while not being able to be the main window. Here are some resources to help you:
Window Programming Guide - Explains the difference between main and key windows
NSWindow class reference - Jump to the sections on canBecomeKeyWindow and canBecomeMainWindow
I'm wondering if there's any way to have my application be notified when a drag-and-drop operation starts anywhere on the screen, even if I don't have an active window there.
I've looked into the normal drag-and-drop APIs, but I haven't spotted anything that does this. The NSDraggingDestination protocol along with the -[NSWindow/NSView registerForDraggedTypes:] method allows you to notice when someone is dragging something and that crosses over into your window, but I'd like to notice it when any dragging operation is started anywhere on the screen.
Any tips on how to go about this? Is there a standard Cocoa API for it, or is there a private API / some kind of dirty hack to get this information?
Thanks in advance :)
Take a look at NSEvent’s +addGlobalMonitorForEventsMatchingMask:handler:. I’m not sure if you can track mouse dragging but it’s certainly possible to track mouse button up/down events.
i haven't done it,
but i am assuming you need some kind of external software monitoring ALL mouse activity on the system, and reporting it to your app (or your application doing this itself),
as dragging events are usually reported in your app only when there is activity inside your app's window..